On Polish spas and resorts

Snow greeted me again this April morning. On Skype a link to 'The Independent' article on a Polish spa awaited me:
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/the-polish-sovietstyle-spa-experience-8557381.html
I am quite familiar with that part of Poland and can recommend it both as a spa and as a holiday-making spot: great mountainous location, lots of scenic hiking routes and sightseeing, plenty of interesting history. I remember one hot summer in the 1990s when I took my father and son to Jelenia Gora which is a pretty town in The Sudety Mountains. We stayed at my uncle's house with an amazing garden on the slope of a hill.
Unfortunately, we were banned from eating fabulously red and aromatic wild strawberries. The aunt had warned us that they were unsafe to eat, because she had to treat the plots with some insecticide. Anyway, the weather was fabulous: sunny and pleasantly hot, between 25 and 28 Celsjus or so, there was plenty of space for children to play and a park nearby to ride their bikes. And the house wasn't an ordinary villa; built for a rich German family ( twisted Polish - German history makes a bow again...), it contained a subterranean bomb shelter! That reminds me of an atomic shelter in a house in Switzerland I was shown when staying with friends. I was told every house in that country has one. That's a sensible thing for a neutral country, I daresay.

Every day my father, who was recuperating after a stroke, would be driven to the nearby Cieplice Spa for various treatments which served him really well. Besides, we travelled a lot around the area and visited a lot of local attractions.

My own experience of a Polish spa was a February stay in Kolobrzeg over ten years ago. That was great, despite the weather, and resulted in two fantastic friendships. One day I may get back to my days in Kolobrzeg, to tell you about Mira Szerląg, a painter I met and befriended, as well as about other people and places.

Another spa treatment I subjected myself to was a fortnight in Busko last February/March which I described here in my earlier posts. When comparing the prices, we found a better deal than the one in the above mentioned article. At less than 150 zloty per day we enjoyed full board accommodation in the renowned sanatorium called Marconi plus five treatments of a wide choice advised by the spa doctor on seeing our medical test results and examining us on arrival. There was a rich program of concerts at the concert hall downstairs and many activities like excursions around the region on offer. As to the staff? You meet various people everywhere... Yes, you still come across this pre-1989 attitude, but why not treat it as another attraction?;-)

Snow and some shy sun

Let me start today with adding a morning view of today from a series: April in Poland!


It's almost 11 p.m. I'm back from Krakow and tired. My slowly recovering limb had to go through more treatment there and now needs to be straight and rest.

Here are a few pictures I took on the way:

A welcome break, the sun must have made us thirsty!

 I often thought of stopping by the church in Slomniki:

Slomniki church  with the golden door!

A strange structure in Krakow near Rondo Mogilskie

Slomniki centre

Wet Monday'2013

Easter Monday is nearly over. It was nice to be with family.:-) In the morning I managed to be the first to sprinkle water on them following the old Polish custom called 'Smingus-Dyngus'!

Snow on Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday today and it's snowing heavily again! Well, it's only the last day of March so not that out of the ordinary for Poland after all. Happy Easter Sunday! And what's the weather like where you are now, Dear Reader?:-)

Pig-faced women!

I came across a tale similar in a way to 'Beauty & The Beast', never heard of it when I was at the age to read  tales and legends:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig-faced_women !

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In a busy time before Easter I didn't manage to add as much as I would like to here. Catching up when possible then.:-)

Easter Saturday in Poland is the day when all religious people take Easter basket to church for blessing. Below I added a relevant scene: Blessing of Easter food, painted by Wlodzimierz Tetmajer in 1897. The monumental original - oil on canvas measuring almost 140 cm by 250 cm  can be contemplated at The National Museum in Krakow.

W. Tetmajer: Blessing of Easter Food

Fountains and cavemen diet!

Snow fall greeted me this morning and strangely, it made me think of .... fountains. The first fountain I remember was the one in Skarzysko park. Mom would hold me by the hand as we passed it on the way to and from the railway station to visit Grandpas. The fountain still is in the centre of the park, surrounded by wooden benches, but the cute little stone boy supplying water to the fountain is long gone and nowadays (cause not now, in the wintry conditions) the water comes from a pile of stones, if I remember well.

To the second unforgettable to me fountain I was led by... a strong smell of chocolate in Hyde Park one summer in the mid-1990s. Myself, I might have resisted it, but my little son would certainly not! He was literally dragged by the smell, and I was dragged by him. On the sunny and hot (yes, wasn't weather kind to us?) summer day we entered The Serpentine Gallery and couldn't believe our eyes. My choc-loving offspring was amazed. There was a fountain bubbling with chocolate, a little chocolate bubble would occasionally land on the floor. My son got really excited. He wanted to have some of the heavenly delicacy. However, I had to persuade him not to and that was very hard, even though he was a very sensible child, definitely not the sort that would start screaming or throwing himself on the floor. The chocolate was not suitable for drinking, the big signs on the walls read. My son was disgusted, what's the point of making so much chocolate that cannot be consumed? (He's never really been into the arts. What would he say about the sculptures made of dust and lint and displayed recently in a renowned gallery? He would probably think it a complete waste of time, but at least not waste of valuable resources!) The third fountain I thought about was the film titled exactly like that: 'The Fountain'. I'm ever so grateful to a very special  Reader of my blog  for recommending it.
And the snow is still falling, just like in some scenes of the film...

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It hasn't stopped snowing for a single moment. That's how it looked around noon:



And two hours later:

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I've been stuck indoors due to this weather. I wasn't particularly warm though, until my dear mother paid me a visit   in the afternoon. She knew what I'd told her: it was cold, despite the heating on maximum. Luckily, she checked it all herself, looked at the radiators, the controls assured by me I turned up the boiler control and recommended that I call the specialist. However, in the end, she went to look at the boiler only to see that it was on '1', not on maximum! It's getting nice and warm at last.:-)
....
A good friend of mine was once fascinated by the paleolithic diet. After a few months she resigned as it was impossible to continue it without missing on social life. I learnt quite a lot about it at the time and today found a relevant n-line group: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106580384367204983498. Maybe someone else will get inspired... :-)  How come I came across this group? I was exploring Google+ , more and more aware that I'm far behind with the use of social networks and stuff like that. Maybe not as much as the Paleolithic man, but  still...
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Going north of Krakow!

Just to tell you, it's a sunny morning in Krakow! Unfortunately, clouds arrived before we set off heading home. Some blue sky peered out again when we entered The Holy Cross Mountains region, north of Krakow. However, there is more snow here in Skarzysko than in Krakow. It's colder and more windy too.

Entering Słomniki, you go past an abandoned synagogue:



There is a church with spectacular towers in the centre of Slomniki, but I didn't manage to take a snap. I was  most lucky with this by-gone era edifice:

Driving past this wooden church I'm always tempted to stop by and see the inside....

We stopped at 'Leśne Echa (Forest Echoes), a roadside inn between Kielce and Konskie. The owners haven't changed, their daughter was my student many years ago. I met her mother in hospital after a biking accident several years ago. It was nice to learn that the young woman lives a happy family life raising two kids.

We reached my dwelling from Wilenska Street greeted by more snow than in Krakow.